Godbey's Commentary - Acts - Romans - Enter His Rest

case, soul and mind and body will all he glorified at the same time. Hence our entire probationary
life here is in the hands of the blessed Potter, who is constantly bringing into availability His
Omnipotent grace and merciful Providence to prepare us for glorification in the end, thus perfecting
us vessels of honor.
24-26. Here Paul speaks of the fact that these vessels of honor are elected both from Jews and
Gentiles indiscriminately.
27. “But Isaiah crieth out in behalf of Israel: If the number of the sons of Israel may be as the
sands of the sea, the remnant shall be saved.” N. B. — Amid the wonderful fulfillment of God’s
promises through out both Testaments, to gather the Jews from the ends of the earth and restore
them, not only to Palestine but to His covenanted mercy and gracious favor, the “remnant” is
everywhere recognized and contemplated, and not the teeming multitudes. The divine election, both
on the line of grace and progenitorship, is confined to this remnant. So, while we may confidently
rely on the fulfillment of God’s promises to His chosen people, we must not forget that the faithful
remnant is the recipient throughout.
28. “For perfecting and cutting it short, the Lord will verify his work upon the earth.” When
God’s time comes to restore the Jews, I know He will astonish the world by the miracles of His
summary prophetical fulfillments.
29. “And as Isaiah before said: Unless the Lord of hosts left unto us a seed, we were as Sodom
and we become like unto Gomorra.” Hence you see that the Jews were neither exterminated nor
utterly cast away, God’s merciful eye following the faithful remnant in all their peregrinations upon
the face of the whole earth, keeping the covenant which He made with Abraham, Isaac, Jacob and
Moses, and finally gathering them back to the land of their holy patrimony.
30. “Then what shall we say? That the Gentile does not following after righteousness received
righteousness, and the righteousness which is from faith,” i.e., the true and genuine righteousness,
which always saves.
31. “But Israel, following the law, did not attain unto the law of righteousness.” The Jews, like
the fallen churches of all ages, retrogressed into the legalistic heresies of seeking salvation by good
works, thus deluded by the devil, and going headlong into apostasy and damnation, so blind that they
actually killed their own Savior.
32. “Wherefore, because they sought it not by faith, but by works.” The true religion in all ages
is salvation by the free grace of God in Christ, received and appropriated by faith alone, without
works; while false religions in all ages teach salvation by faith and works, the latter always eclipsing
the former and running them into idolatry. “They stumbled over the stone of stumbling,
33. “As has been written: Behold I lay in Zion a stone of stumbling and a rock of offense, and he
that believeth on him shall not be ashamed.” Shame is always the progeny of sin. People are
ashamed to pray in public and in their own families and invite the erring to the Savior, looking them
boldly in the face. What is the solution? Sin is at the bottom. Get rid of sin and your shame is all